The Old Man and the Eternal Sea
by Rokesmith
Summary: A selection of sometimes insightful and sometimes random ficlets covering different parts of the Doctor's lives.
1. Man's Best Friend

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of Doctor Who, those rights belong to the BBC. This fanfic was written for fun not profit.

_The newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor reflects on his life so far and his relationship with his most constant companion._

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><p>"Oh, you sexy thing."<p>

The TARDIS is beautiful. The Doctor thinks she's always been beautiful, but now the stripped down, darker, organic design of her previous configuration is gone, and she's... _gorgeous_. It's like she's put on a pretty new dress to go with his new suit.

He skips up the steps to the console and grins at his new reflection in the glass time rotor. His new hands dance over the new controls. He knows exactly where everything is and what it all does just like he's always done. The link between them is as strong as ever, letting him know how to fly her from this new design like he'd been doing it his entire life.

He pauses for an instant, enjoys the anticipation of the new adventure, and then pulls the takeoff lever. The time rotor shudders, the ancient engines roar, and they're off.

He twirls around the console and sets them hurtling towards the moon, and remembers that it wasn't always this way. When he'd started he'd never been able to make the ship do what he wanted. All his efforts to get back to a simple year on a planet he'd already visited so he could offload his pesky human stowaways had ended in failure. He'd blamed them, Susan, fate, chance, the Ship herself, anything but admit – with the arrogance of a young man – that a Time Lord of the High Council and the House of Prydonians was unable to master a simple Type 40 TT capsule.

He flattered himself that later he'd become more skilled, growing more accomplished in flying a particularly reluctant TARDIS until he was almost perfect. But it wasn't that simple.

He couldn't remember when he'd first realised the truth. It had been after his exile, after he began to re-involve himself in Galifreyan affairs. Perhaps it had been Romana who'd had to point it out to him: the simple truth that in those early days, the TARDIS hadn't been fighting him as he'd thought, but instead she'd given him exactly what he wanted. When he'd left Galifrey he hadn't wanted anything else but to run, as far and as fast as he could, and she'd given him the universe, everything that ever was and no need to look back or think of home.

And Ian and Barbara? It had been his fault that he couldn't get them home, but not for the reasons he'd thought. He hadn't wanted them to leave, not really. Not with the certain knowledge that one day Susan would need to be left behind. He hadn't wanted to be alone. If their paths ever crossed again he would have to apologise for that. But then he'd learned since that humans were far more intelligent and perceptive than he'd been willing to credit in those first days. They'd probably worked out for themselves that he needed their company long before he did.

If he ever saw Ian again he'd shake his hand, and with the humility of an old man who'd learned his lessons, say thank you. That was the other unrecognised gift the TARDIS had given him by keeping the humans with him. They'd helped him out of the arrogance and aloofness that came from being a child of Galifrey and a Lord of Time. He hadn't wanted to be like his people, sealed away in their ivory Citadel, looking down on the universe with detachment, amusement, and contempt. But in those early days that's what he'd been like, just like any other Time Lord, until his journeys with the humans had taught him the value of the simplest thing in the universe: life itself.

Whether he'd known it or not, he'd learned his lesson by the time his exile had ended. Once his enforced stay on Earth was over, he'd travelled in company because he wanted to show others the universe in all its wonder, and the TARDIS had obliged. They'd seen such amazing things together, and she'd never let him see anything but the best the cosmos had to offer, from quadruple eclipses to dew drops on a daisy at dawn. And she'd brought him to the people he could share this with: companions he'd laughed with, cried with and run with from one end of time to the other.

On his brilliant new screen, Earth glitters like a jewel. He wonders which of them had wanted to come back there most after the War. She is the last of her kind as much as he is the last of his, and the Earth is the closest thing either of them has to a home. There are probably more echoes of them both there than any other planet in the whole universe. Not so long ago, that would have filled him with despair that Galifrey was gone for good, but though he remembers those feelings, they aren't part of him anymore. He is free.

He is free and it is wonderful. He holds tightly to the TARDIS as they hurtle past the moon and back to Earth. She cares so much for that even while in pain and burning she managed to land him in the garden of a little girl who'd been praying for a policeman to bring her the Doctor instead.

This is the start of a brand new adventure, he can feel it. He is the Doctor in the TARDIS and the sky is nowhere near the limit.


	2. Everywhen

_A personal challenge to write tell a story in 100 words which, I think, speaks for itself._

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><p>"You see, Jamie, the universe is vast. There are more stars than there are blades of grass in a field. From far away they seem identical, but look closely and each one is unique. Nothing is ever still, it's all turning and falling all the time. And in the TARDIS, space and time aren't separate, they are the same, and you must walk a narrow path through both to a place that lasts as long as an eye-blink as everything that ever was rushes past you."<p>

"Aye? And that's why you can never land in the right place is it?"


	3. Ancient History

_A ficlet crossing over the UNIT-era Third Doctor with Stargate simply because I thought it would be an amusing idea._

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><p>"My dear Lethbridge-Stewart, was it really necessary to disturb me with this? You are interrupting vitally important work."<p>

The Brigadier looked at Sergeant Benton, who stood just behind the Doctor with a flat expression and did not mention that when he had gone to fetch him, UNIT's scientific advisor had been alone in his lab practicing some kind of bizarre martial art.

"I think you'll find this worth your time, Doctor," the Brigadier replied, turning away and walking towards one of the base's outlying buildings. "We've had something flown in from America today. While it's on British soil it's UNIT's responsibility we are to look after it while it's being looked at by some of the country's top scientists."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," the Doctor said. "So what is it?"

"That, Doctor, is the question the Americans are hoping we can help answer."

Whatever it was, it was big. The huge, flat wooden crate that the Doctor walked around had been stamped with 'Top Secret' more times than was strictly necessary. There was a team of soldiers working at the lid with crowbars, they had just about finished removing the nails as he finished his circuit.

"May I see the list of scientists cleared to examine it?"

"Certainly, sir." Benton handed him a clipboard.

The Doctor read it as the soldiers lifted the lid off and leant it against the wall. "Lethbridge-Stewart, what do you know about what's in there?"

"Hardly a thing, Doctor," the Brigadier told him. "It's the property of the US Air Force, and they've had it since the war. It took me all day to get that much out of them, but rumour has it they've been trying to work out what it was for ten years at least. Head of the project is some chap called Langford."

"And you haven't noticed anything interesting about these scientists?"

The Brigadier looked at the list. "They're more your sort of chaps than mine."

"Lethbridge-Stewart, they are some of the country's most highly qualified archaeologists."

"So... whatever it is in there, it's old, is it, sir?" Benton asked.

"Very old," the Doctor said quietly. "Or at least they think it is." He looked up and smiled. "Come along then, Lethbridge-Stewart, we don't have all day."

"Very well, Doctor." The Brigadier turned to the soldiers around the box. "Jenkins! Rope detail! Pull!"

The four soldiers took hold of the ropes attached to whatever was in the box and started to heave. Slowly, very slowly, the object in the crate reared up in front of them. It was a ring, huge, heavy disk made of some kind of black crystal, more than twice the height of a man. It was in two parts; the outer, solid support divided by large, reddish crystals, and an inner ring split into dozens of sections, each with a strange symbol carved into it. It was impossible to tell if it had been built or grown.

"That's incredible," Benton whispered.

"Right," the Doctor said. "I've seen enough. You can put it back in the crate."

"What?" the Brigadier exclaimed. "Is that it? What the devil is it?"

"Oh very well," the Doctor sighed. "If only for the sake of Jenkins' back."

He stepped into the shallow box and strolled up to the ring. He rapped his hand gently against the surface, then stepped back and let his eyes follow the track of the inner ring, counting under his breath. Then he pressed both hands against the inner ring and pushed as hard as he could, smiling as he felt it shift ever so slightly. Finally, he took a stethoscope out of his pocket and touched it to the surface of the crystal, listening for a few moments before nodding.

"Well?" the Brigadier demanded.

The Doctor put the stethoscope away. "Well, you understand this is only a cursory examination, and I'm sure your experts can tell you much more, but I would guess that this object is several thousand years old and not made by humans. I would guess it was discovered by archaeologists in the last hundred years having been buried somewhere. Egypt would be the logical place."

The Brigadier's eyes narrowed. "Doctor, do you know what this is?"

"I haven't a clue, Lethbridge-Stewart."

"I see. Well, do you think it could be some kind of weapon?"

"Really, Lethbridge-Stewart," the Doctor snapped. "The paranoia of the military mind never ceases to amaze me. Not everything that you don't understand is a threat, and the sooner your species realises this, the better."

"I don't think it's a weapon, sir," Benton ventured. "It doesn't look like one. It looks a bit like the dial on a telephone, with those symbols around the edge instead of numbers."

The Doctor smiled. "Well done, Sergeant. That is a very interesting way of looking at it. Perhaps there's hope for humans yet."

"Mind you, sir," Benton continued. "If that is a phone, I'm not sure I'd want to talk to whoever picked up on the other end."

"Who knows," the Doctor said, turning towards the door, "perhaps they would feel the same way about you?"

"You're sure it's not dangerous?" The Brigadier called after him.

The Doctor turned. "Alistair, I give you my word that if I thought it were, I would tell you."

"Is there anything you'd like me to pass on to the scientists when they arrive tomorrow? Or the Americans?"

The Doctor paused at the door. "Just to consider that if someone took the trouble to bury something, perhaps it was better left that way."

As he walked out of the storage hanger and towards his lab, he considered that they wouldn't listen. They never did. But then, he wondered, if they did, would he care about them as much?


End file.
